I've Got These Habits That I Cannot Break
by Strawberry Sonata
Summary: Arthur can't help but fall for the strange man with an even stranger hobby. University AU


**A/N: I can't even begin to explain where this came from. I'm a big fan of the Nordics so I kind of wanted to play around with some other characters and that's basically the only reason it's about Alfred and Arthur XD. I have wanted to write about them for some time now, I just didn't think it would turn out this way haha. I was inspired to write this story based on my own habit of leaving poetry in random places for strangers, though it ends at meeting a guy this way. I have yet for that to happen to me haha. I credit all the authors at the end of the poems, because I think it is important that people know who wrote them and can find them when leaving these cards about. If you want to know the titles, those are posted at the end. This story completely ran away from me and more or less wrote itself, but I had so much fun with it and I hope that you do too! **

**As a heads up, it is a human/college universe story. That could get confusing but I was hoping you could tell by the story haha. I also threw in some other Hetalia characters but deliberately didn't name them because I thought it might be fun to see if people can still figure out who they are. **

**By the by, I do not own Hetalia or the any of the poems that appear below. Huh. Guess I shouldn't hold my breath for a paycheck then.**

**/\\\/**

It had started simply enough. Arthur had seen the young man place a note card on the windshield of a car and gone to see what it said. Arthur was not nosy, mind, not at all and he would deny all allegations. It was out of pure curiosity that he looked at it and now he had become hooked. The card he read bore neither addressee nor the name of a sender, in fact it was barren except for the few lines of a poem;

_Yesterday is History,  
'Tis so far away  
Yesterday is Poetry  
'Tis Philosophy_

_Yesterday is mystery_  
_Where it is Today_  
_While we shrewdly speculate_  
_Flutter both away_

_-Emily Dickinson_

Arthur pondered over the possible meaning of writing such a thing. Did the young man know the car's owner? That seemed unlikely. Arthur took notice of the man looking out across the parking lot, as though he was trying to discern the best recipient of such a card. The poem was such a simple, little thing, why share it? Arthur shook his head and placed it back on the windshield, reminding himself that why ever it was there, it was none of his business and speaking of business, he was running late for his economics class. Rather than focus on the concept of supply and demand, all that Arthur could think of was that poem and the mysterious stranger who planted it.

/\\\\/

The next time it happened Arthur had been sitting in the campus' café, enjoying a cup of tea and trying to fit in some last minute studying for history but who knew that the reasons for the First World War's beginnings were so diverse and hard to pin on any one explanation. As his head began to swim, he looked up to rub his eyes and noticed that strange man again, across the room. The first time he had been wearing a hood, so Arthur did not see that the man actually had hair the color of wheat and wore a pair of glasses that sat crookedly on his nose. Subconsciously he leaned closer, as if it could help him peer into the other's mind. The man set down his mug and began to gather his belongings. Before he left, he folded a single note card into the newspaper he had been reading.

Not wanting to appear strange, Arthur debated how much time he should let pass before going to the table. The anxiety of seeing an approaching gaggle of girls caused him to forget about acceptable social behaviors and he shot at the table grabbing the newspaper in such a way that the dirty blond with a bow in her hair looked at him as though he had just sprouted wings. Ignoring a brunette girl's yell of "what the hell, man?" and obscene hand gesture was not so hard to do with thoughts of the note card swirling in his mind. He eagerly ripped the newspaper apart, searching for his gift and let out a strangled cry that fell on an unknown place on the scale of human noises between laughter and choking. The ever proper and polite barista who hailed from Austria spared him a concerned look and inquired if he was feeling quite alright but his question fell on deaf ears. Arthur was far too taken with his new poem to pay him any attention. It was a love poem this time, one that tugged at his heartstrings.

_I Found you and I lost you,  
All on a gleaming day.  
The day was filled with sunshine,  
And the land was full of May._

_A golden bird was singing_  
_Its melody divine,_  
_I found you and I loved you,_  
_And all the world was mine._

_I found you and I lost you,_  
_All on a golden day,_  
_But when I dream of you, dear,_  
_It is always brimming May._

_-Paul Laurence Dunbar_

Such a sad, beautiful piece of work, why leave that behind? Arthur knew he ought to let it go, before this curiosity became an obsession but it was tough. Besides, he had more important things to attend to, like a midterm that accounted for twenty percent of his grade. Arthur turned back to his book but his mind kept turning to the blond. His mind followed this strange man and his strange hobby much easier than it followed world events and really it was much more interesting to ponder poetry than imperialism and if only his brain could care for history a little more.

/\\\\\/

The third time Arthur encountered the serial poem-abandoner was in the university's library. He was there for a chemistry study group, doing his best to keep up with the group's stern, no-nonsense leader. When he was interrupted yet again by his pasta-loving, fool of a boyfriend, the Japanese exchange student turned to Arthur to ask about last week's assignments. Halfway through his explanation, it happened. One minute his was describing how the phenomenon of radioactive decay works and the next, wouldn't you know it, his own brain decayed as he caught sight of the mystery man. His eyes followed the man to a stack of fiction books waiting to be shelved, where he pulled out another card and slipped it into one of the books. Before Arthur could be brought back to earth by his Chem colleagues, he muttered excuses about needing to get a book for Lit before it was checked out and practically sprinted to the shelf. He began to pick up the books and flip through them in such a manner, that a tornado could not have been prouder of the disaster he left behind. Were it not for a little voice in the back of his mind reminding him of his current location, Arthur would have whooped in triumph when the white card with its flowing black inhabitants was safely in his grasp. He read his new poem eagerly, finding it much funnier than its predecessors.

_As soon as Fred gets out of bed,  
his underwear goes on his head.  
His mother laughs, "Don't put it there,  
a head's no place for underwear!"  
But near his ears, above his brains,  
is where Fred's underwear remains._

_At night when Fred goes back to bed,_  
_he deftly plucks it off his head._  
_His mother switches off the light_  
_and softly croons, "Good night! Good night!"_  
_And then, for reasons no one knows,_  
_Fred's underwear goes on his toes._

_-Jack Prelutsky_

Arthur was much too perplexed with the poem to laugh about its subject. As he placed it back into the book it fell from, questions swarmed him. Why did the man put a humorous poem here? Why had he switched genres? Was he making some sort of statement? Then again, the card had slid from some book about Swedish murderers and tattoos in the form of dragons. Maybe he was just trying to put a smile on the face of those who read the book? A reminder that even in the darkest of nights, a light still shines through.

/\\\\\/

Arthur briefly wonders if what he does could be considered a form of stalking, but when the fourth poem comes to him, it is entirely by accident and not because he was creeping on the strange man. He had entered the bathroom, mind devoid of anything related to poetry until he shut the door of the stall and found an etching there. At first he ignored it, used to the graffiti of the men's room: lists of the hottest girls on campus, scales of which of them were the easiest, angry insults at professors who asked too much. It was the handwriting that caught his attention. The way the g's looped into the start of the next letter and the dots of the lowercase i's tried to escape their shackles. This was the last place he expected to find a poem and yet, here it was.

_Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.  
From what I've tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire.  
But if it had to perish twice,  
I think I know enough of hate  
To say that for destruction ice  
Is also great  
And would suffice._

_-Robert Frost_

What a terribly depressing statement to place upon the bathroom wall. As if Arthur wanted to consider the various ways in which the world may or may not end while doing his business. He did his best to carry on with his day after that, though it would have been much easier without the images of the world drowning in fireballs and ravaging towers of flame alternating between visions of a vast, frozen wasteland of nothingness, and the mystery man buried in the snow.

/\\\\\/

By the time Arthur comes across his fifth poem, he has begun to accept that what started as a simple curiosity has exploded into a fullblown obsession. He has spent the entirety of his past week looking out for the strange man, hoping to find a new note card. Never mind the fact that he had an essay to write, tests to study for, job applications to fill and oh yeah, some friends who wanted to go out but no bloody thanks, couldn't they tell he was busy? Now he began to consider actually talking with the man instead of just reading his poems. But how to begin… "Oh, hi there! I've been inadvertently stalking you for the past few months or so, reading every poem you leave behind or at least the ones I see you leave, and I think it's just so weird and bizarrely fascinating and can't you tell me why, just WHY do you do that?" Does not seem like a plausible introduction to Arthur.

Arthur does not know what to say to this man because he is loath to admit that somewhere during this poetry scavenger hunt, he has fallen for the strange man and his even stranger hobby. Never mind that Arthur does not know who he is, let alone his name, and yet something deep inside tells him that he does know this man. Looking at the poems he leaves behind tells Arthur more about this man than an actual conversation could. Tells him that the man is well-read, that he has a sense of humor, that he is serious yet whimisical and quite possibly not all there, though Arthur has begun to question if he himself isn't missing a few screws.

He witnesses his mystery man (since when was he _his?_ Arthur had no right to claim him and the thought that he wanted to claim the man made him even more uneasy) in the courtyard with an upperclassman. Arthur watches as he slips a note card into a book and hands it to her, waving cheerfully as he goes. Willing himself to move, Arthur basically sprints towards her. He cannot quite explain the flare of jealousy that slices through his breast, but he pushes it down as he approaches her, after all, he has to think of some excuse for going through her book without coming off as a total psycho. He finds that he recognizes the girl, though it slightly shames him that the only reason he can is not because they shared the same Poli Sci class last semester but because of her large chest. Arthur comes to a halt in front of her, panting, feebly grasping at straws as to her name. _K, something with a K, or was it a Y? I remember it ended in –rina…_ Realizing the girl was eyeing him as though he might attack her, Arthur snapped to reality and said "Hey".

So it did not look like he was going to be winning conversationalist of the year. Bloody hell. He decided this was already awkward enough and it would be best not to drag it out any longer. Honesty was always the best policy, was it not? "Can I see the book that guy gave you?"

The girl appears genuinely confused and honestly frightened of him. "Book? What book? You m-mean the one Alfred gave to me?"

Ah-ha! A name! Alfred! That was his mystery man's name. It was as though a match had been struck. Arthur invaded the poor girl's personal space even more and almost dragged the book from her. "Yes! Yes! That one! Please let me see it!"

The girl looked as though she would burst into tears at any moment. "Alright! Alright, you can have it!"

Arthur excitedly shook the text until his prize fell from between its pages. He practically threw it back at her in his haste to return it and get to someplace private to read.

The black eye he had obtained from the girl's fantastically creepy younger brother throbbed as he sat in his dorm. He hadn't actually been assaulting the bloke's sister, where the hell did he get that idea from? Arthur considered it a failure of communication, English was rather difficult to grasp sometimes and moved on with his life, considering the injury worth it for the note card that he now held in his hands. He had never kept the previous note cards, so he was unsure of what to do with this one. It was, as of yet, his favorite and he decided to place it front and center on his bulletin board.

_What happens to a dream deferred?_

_Does it dry up  
like a raisin in the sun?  
Or fester like a sore-  
And then run?  
Does it stink like rotten meat?  
Or crust and sugar over-  
like a syrupy sweet?_

_Maybe it just sags  
like a heavy load._

_Or does it explode?_

_-Langston Hughes_

He hummed in happiness as he looked at it. What a fascinating concept. What, indeed, happened to dreams? Perhaps he and Alfred could have a conversation about it over tea one of these days? Ever since he had heard the name escape from the girl's lips, his thoughts had been filled with flaxen-haired men named Alfred. Arthur had made up his mind that upon finding the next poem he would call the man out and ask just exactly why he bloody did what he did and oh, if it wasn't too much trouble perhaps he would care for a spot of tea or some other drink or if it was too inconvenient they could just skip straight to the snogging part.

/\\\\\/

The next poem that Arthur comes across is not written in ink. Alfred took the long trip from the top of the science building to the quad out front and the poem that he has left is not hidden away. It is out in public, for all to see, shining brightly. His poem is left in blood, as his life spills from him in deep, ruby red verses.

Arthur fears that he will soon learn what truly happens to a dream deferred.

/\\\\\/

The rumors fly and each one is as inflated as the last. His parents were seeking a divorce. (Big deal, over half the student population's already had divorced parents). He was rejected by that Japanese exchange student that Arthur had taught basic chemistry principles to just a few weeks ago. (Oh, if only, if only Arthur could have told him not to hurt the flaxen-haired male too). He had a bad trip as a result of mixed up drugs from the school's best-known, scarred drug dealer. (Arthur glared at the tall man whenever he past, just as a precaution). He was falling behind on account of the amount of credits he took, while maintaining a part time job and trying to support his sick mother but the pressure was getting to him and it finally exploded when he received a failing grade in one of his most important classes. (Arthur bemoaned the young man's fate and why oh, why couldn't he have approached Alfred sooner, then he could have offered help with caring for his mum and studies and none of this would have happened). Arthur knows each possibility is as ridiculous as the last but continues to blame himself for not having acted as though they were truth.

Arthur walks between classes, an apparition or a zombie perhaps, his friends aren't sure what to call him anymore and have literally stopped calling on him as well. He has taken to haunting the library, reading through poetry anthologies as a way to keep his mystery man close. It is on his third night of being kicked out of the library for closing time that he sees him.

"Alfred?" He does not want to believe his eyes but he is so very excited by the idea that the strange man with the strange hobby is finally back that he listens to his eyes and chases after him.

"Alfred! Wait!" The frantic note in his voice causes the young man to look back and Arthur stops dead in his tracks, as does his world and could the universe please stop ripping the floor out from under him.

"Sorry, Alfred's not out yet. But don't worry, it happens to me a lot," says the man who is, but at the same time not, his Alfred.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean- I didn't know -," Arthur struggles for words but they all float away from him, the little traitors.

Not-Alfred gives him a small smile. "Would you like to see him?"

It has been two days since Matthew told Arthur where his twin could be found. Two days for Arthur to work up his courage to visit. Two days for him to find the perfect poem. Alfred had always given one to him and now it was his turn to give back. For better or worse, Alfred is sleeping when Arthur enters, a vase of cheery daises by the window the only patch of color in the room and a book of poetry by Alexander Pushkin sat on the side table. Arthur shook his head. (What college student read Pushkin for enjoyment?)Arthur quietly picked the book up and opened to the page where the book mark lay to be sure his poem would not be missed. He stuck his note card in and left the hospital. His love had taught him well.

_I went down to the river,  
I set down on the bank.  
I tried to think but couldn't,  
So I jumped in and sank._

_I came up once and hollered!_  
_I came up twice and cried!_  
_If that water hadn't a-been so cold_  
_I might've sunk and died._

_But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!_

_I took the elevator_  
_Sixteen floors above the ground._  
_I thought about my baby_  
_And thought I would jump down._

_I stood there and I hollered!_  
_I stood there and I cried!_  
_If it hadn't a-been so high_  
_I might've jumped and died._

_But it was High up there! It was high!_

_So since I'm still here livin',_  
_I guess I will live on._  
_I could've died for love-_  
_But for livin' I was born_

_Though you may hear me holler,_  
_And you may see me cry-_  
_I'll be dogged, sweet baby,_  
_If you gonna see me die._

_Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!_

_-Langston Hughes_

To say Alfred was delighted by his gift was an understatement. He grilled Matthew with every question he could think of regarding who had left it. (What's his name? Arthur? I like that. Good name. What's he like? What do you mean you don't know him? You sent him here. No, I don't know him. Why are you freaking out like that? I wish I knew him.)

But something deep in Alfred told him he already did.

/\\\\\/

After a few days, Arthur returns when Alfred's awake. They greatly enjoy the process of getting to know one another.

"Why plant all those poems?"

"You knew I did that? Since the beginning?"

"I don't know if it was the beginning. It was after you stuck it to the car".

Alfred lets out a laugh that Arthur could swear sounds like summer and sun shining through leaves, if those things made sounds, and explains his lifelong love affair with poetry. He was so fascinated and excited by it, he wanted to share that enjoyment with everybody. He figured leaving poems in random places for people to stumble on was a good way to do it. No, the car had not been his first poem and he was surprised that Arthur was so touched by what he did.

"Perhaps if we had met sooner, I wouldn't…"

Alfred stops his sentence halfway, though that does not halt the thought and it carries itself, unspoken, through the air to Arthur. Alfred is grateful that Arthur does not question, does not judge him for what he does, what he has done. Arthur is grateful he has someone to discuss dreams and poetry with. Both are grateful that the other does not think him a freak.

/\\\\\/

Two men sit in a café, discussing dreams over tea. Well, one has tea, the other has a mug full of coffee. A few years ago they acknowledged their feelings and now, here, they reminisce about how poetry has brought them together.

"If you weren't such a creep, leaving those cards everywhere, there's no way I would have found you".

"More like if you weren't such a creep, you wouldn't have stalked me for such a long time and just asked me out like a normal person".

Arthur attempts to hide his blush and fumes, "it is your turn to pay, I believe, love".

Alfred just lets out a laugh, that one that sounds like freedom from school and the beginnings of the summer holidays and it is so happy and bright, Arthur never wants that sound to leave his life.

"So, is it your turn to leave the poem, or mine?"

_There is a place where the sidewalk ends  
And before the street begins,  
And there the grass grows soft and white,  
And there the sun burns crimson bright,  
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight  
To cool in the peppermint wind._

_Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black_  
_And the dark street winds and bends._  
_Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow_  
_We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,_  
_And watch where the chalk-white arrows go_  
_To the place where the sidewalk ends._

_Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,_  
_And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,_  
_For the children, they mark, and the children, they know_  
_The place where the sidewalk ends._

_-Shel Silverstein_

**/\\\/**

**A/N: I did my best to vary the kinds of poems that I used and the authors I chose from though after writing it, I noticed that I did use Hughes twice. Whoopsie. I liked both of them too much to take them out. Like I said above, here's the titles, in order of appearance: Yesterday is History, A Golden Day, As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed, Fire and Ice, Dream Deferred, Life is Fine and Where the Sidewalk Ends. That's it for citations, (what can I say? Old habits die hard haha) since they can all easily be google searched. I did my best to stay true to how they were written in terms of syntax and breaking up the verses. Fanfic formatting is hard though for me… but if you see a random capital letter in a poem or something like that, know that it's intentional. If you see one anywhere else, that's a problem and you should let me know haha. I really wanted to have the fonts for the poems appear in a handwriting type but again, fanfic formatting. Sigh. Review and tell me what you thought? Too many poems? Not enough variety in them? Some strange POV shifts? Any sudden tense shifts? Or a simple, 'it was a nice, unique story' will suffice. ^_^**


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